Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Praying for Hate

Millions,
if not billions, of people do something every day.They turn their thoughts to heaven and they pray.What do they pray for?Good health? Winning the next $600 million
lottery?Success at work?

All
good ideas, but religion teaches that all anyone should do is praise God.That’s what prayer is for.Of course, that’s not what people really think.We’ve all read prayers published in
newspapers, both thanks to God for some benefit or requests to a saint for
assistance.They used to be very
commonplace.

Praying to harm someone? You may not do that, but according to a ruling by a Texas judge, it's perfectly fine to ask God to smite a neighbor you don’t like.In fact, if someone hears your
prayer and instead of waiting for God to act actually smites your neighbor for
you, the judge said there’s no connection to the prayer.

Don’t
tell that to Mikey Weinstein a lawyer who founded a group called Military
Religious Freedom Foundation, which opposes religious intrusions into the
military.His audacity outraged a former
Navy chaplain, Gordon Klingenschmitt, who posted an invective-filled prayer against
Weinstein, his family and home on his website.

Michael "Mikey" Weinstein

Weinstein,
who calls himself an agnostic, testified that he has been threatened and had
swastikas painted on his house.Windows
were shot out, and dead animal were left on his doorstep.

"We
are disappointed in the ruling because we believe the judge made a mistake in
not understanding that imprecatory prayers are code words for trolling for
assassins for the Weinstein family," Weinstein said in an on-line story by
the Religious News Service. "I don't think the judge understood that these
are not regular prayers.”

Weinstein
compared “imprecatory prayer” to Islamic fatwas declared against an
opponent.Author Salman Rushdie, for
example, was targeted by a fatwa and had to hide for 10 years because some
Muslims take such requests for revenge very serious.

On
the other hand, District Court Judge Martin Hoffman does not.In his ruling, he said “there was no evidence
that the prayers were connected to threats made against Weinstein and his
family or damage done to his property.”

Gordon Klingenschmitt

Believers
cheered."Thankfully, the district
court recognized that if people are forced to stop offering imprecatory
prayers, half the churches, synagogues and mosques in this country will have to
be shut down," said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford
Institute, a legal advocacy group that supported Klingenschmitt.

Really?All this time I thought parishioners prayed
for things like peace, health and things like that.Nope, all wrong.A lot of them want their neighbors smitten.

Klingenschmitt
and his cohorts cited Psalm 109, a biblical ode that has a particularly vicious
tone.

Of course, when someone who is a “true believer”
like Klingenschmitt who, along with so many others, wants to impose religious
views on someone else, people such as Weinstein simply don’t have a prayer.

Long-time religious historian Bill
Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.He also speaks at various religious
organizations throughout Florida.You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.com.He is the author of the famed Unauthorized
Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel
Writers Get Their Information;
Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols;and
Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.His books are
available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various
publishers.You can also follow him
on Twitter.

About Me

During his career, Bill has been a newspaper reporter, magazine writer/editor, advertising copywriter and writer/editor of NASCAR programs, among other jobs. He has won three international awards for stories and programs while working for International Speedway Corp. and was named 2000 Florida Feature Writer of the Year.
He has published four books to date and his writing has appeared in hundreds of local, regional, state and national publications.